themis

Harald Mang, the captain of the Themis, had no seagoing experience and taught himself to sail with a textbook. He had been a glider pilot before World War II and served as a Soomepoiss in the Finnish army fighting the Soviets. In 1944, he was discharged and fled to Sweden but then decided to take his family to South America. Because the region was unknown to him, he decided to venture there first alone.

The Themis was a 47-foot-long (14.3 m) by 15-foot-beam (4.6 m), fishing boat with a 60-HP diesel motor that Mang purchased for 10,000 Swedish kronor. The 38-year-old boat left Lysekil harbor on July 19, 1949, bound for Argentina with 10 Estonians on board, including three women and a six-month-old baby, each of whom pitched in to pay for the boat and provisions.

The Themis stopped in Dover, Waterford, Ireland, Madeira islands Cape Verdes islands off the west coast of Africa, probably Recife, and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, finally reaching Buenos Aires, Argentina, in February 1950. According to newspaper records, the trip went fairly smoothly, and the ship held up during storms. Seven passengers, including the women and the baby, disembarked in Buenos Aires.

Mang, however, did not like Argentina, and when he learned that his family had been granted residency in Canada, he decided to sail there instead. After working for eight months to get supplies for the boat, he departed in December 1950 with two Estonians living in Argentina: Alfred Sillandi, who had arrived in 1946 on the Snygg, and Väino Hoolmaa, 22, who in 1949 had sailed on the Ilmarine.

“Interview with the ‘last Viking’ at journey’s end.” Stockholm-Tidingen Eestlastele, July 4, 1951

The Themis sailed for 50 days under wind power alone from Pernambuco, Brazil, to Charleston and Norfolk, Virginia. Scarce diesel fuel was impossible to buy without a license, which involved a hefty $100 bribe. When the coast guard boarded the ship, the crew declined help or supplies. “Captain Mang has done some able navigating, using only a chart of the western hemisphere and an alarm clock,” reported The State newspaper in South Carolina on April 28, 1951.

In Norfolk, Hoolmaa jumped ship. Sillandi parted ways in New York, leaving Mang to sail alone for eight days through the North American inland waterways, arriving in Toronto in July 1951. He was hailed as the “last Viking” by the émigré press. Mang sold the Themis for 2,000 Canadian dollars. It changed hands once more and eventually sank in Toronto harbor in 1955.

Known crew and passengers:

Captain Harald Mang, 32
Alfred Sillandi, 38
Vaino Hoolmaa, 22

Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch, Virginia, May 15, 1951

Two days later, the Ledger-Dispatch continued its coverage. Nora Küün and her daughter Aimi, who had reached America on Erma in 1945, read about the Themis and paid a visit. They brought pumpernickel for the sailors “because Estonians eat dark bread,” Nora said.